Going Green with Tai Chi - Dairy Farmers Practice
Tai Chi for Organic Cows to Raise Milk YieldsApril 1, 2008 - April
22nd is Earth Day, an annual world-wide event to promote environment
awareness. With “going green” becoming such a hot topic nowadays,
have you ever wondered how Tai Chi may play a role in this
trend?Well,
coincidently, this month, a 44-year old British diary farmer, Rob
Taverner, caught the attention of many media in the U.K. and around
the world – every morning, he performs Tai Chi in front of his 100
organic cows to get them in the right mood to produce lots of
milk.While
most media got attracted by the fun part of this story, there is
more significance in it – like Rob Taverner, many organic diary
farmers in Britain have taken up Tai Chi as one of the natural means
to increase the productitvity of their cows.Some
studies have shown organic milk production to be a relatively low
user of energy. The organic system encourages healthy and natural
methods, such as using healthy soil, replacing essential nutrients
like nitrates without the use of synthetic nutrients. For those
British diary farmers, Tai Chi is one such healthy way that, as The
Federation of Organic Milk Groups of (FOMG) puts it, “can bring an
additional spiritual uplift to their herds, fields and
farmyards”.FOMG
is made up of organic dairy farmers from across Britain to promote
organic milk. They enlisted the services of a Tai Chi Master to help
teach their farmers a series of seven special Tai Chi moves. They
believe that if the farmer is at peace with himself, then it is
positive vibes for the cows, then the cows will be more content and
more productive.Watch
the Video Clips of the Tai Chi Moves Named After Farmyard
ActionsTo help their farmers to learn these customized
Tai Chi moves, FOMG named the moves after farmyard actions and
video-recorded the demonstrations by volunteers on the real-life
organic diary farmlands. You can watch these interesting video clips
on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0uDEHu5rk8